Thanks for the posting the piece on Confederate veterans. Hearing the old-timers do the rebel yell was so interesting, but I would have loved to have heard their younger selves do it in mass formation as they made a charge. Would have had a different effect, I'm sure. Here is a small image of the effect of age and circumstances: Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, vol. 3 (three volumes; New York: Random House, 1974), 1046.

Oops! Didn't post the entire quote ... Historian Shelby Foote noted that the Confederate yell, used when attacking, was “a sort of fox-hunt yip mixed up with a sort of banshee squall.” He recalled that “An old Confederate veteran … [years after the war] was asked … to give the Rebel Yell. The ladies had never heard it. And he said, ‘It can’t be done, except at a run, and I couldn’t do it anyhow with a mouthful of false teeth and a stomach full of food.” Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative, vol. 3 (three volumes; New York: Random House, 1974), 1046. See also, Geoffrey C. Ward, with Ric Burns and Ken Burns, The Civil War: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 267.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.